One of my key independent variables is race/ethnicity. Out of several Asian subgroups, I got information on Chinese, Filipinos, and Asian Indians separately. There are no observations for Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese. I also found observations for “Othe Asians” category. I do not find more information on this category such as which countries belong to the “Other Asian” category? It would be a great help if I could able to get more information about countries falling under this category.

It sounds like you are referring to either the RACEA or RACESR NHIS variables available via IPUMS Health Surveys. Please correct me if I am wrong. You are correct about the available categories for these self-reported race identification variables. IPUMS Health Surveys is only able to make available the detail provided in the public use data. Unfortunately, not all response categories are identifiable in public use data. This could be due to several reasons relating to response rates, respondent confidentiality, etc. The best I can say about who is included in the “Other Asians” category is that they are people who identify as Asian who are not Chinese, Filipino, or Asian Indian.

Thank you Jeff. I really appreciate your response because this makes my work very easy and less time consuming. I would like to make me clear by asking a question with you again. You said “Other Asians” category is that they are people who identify as Asian who are not Chinese, Filipino, or Asian Indian. Would it be still ok if I say “Other Asians” category also includes Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean? The reason of asking this question is that I find Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean in separate rows in IHS IPUMS under race identification variables without any observations. In this case, can I still report that these Asian subgroups were included in “Other Asians”?

Yes, you can say that the “Other Asians” category includes individuals who might identify as being Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, and many other responses that fall under the broad category of Asian. The reason you see response categories for Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean in separate rows on the codes tab with no observations is that these categories do have observations for earlier NHIS samples. Specifically, if you use the 1995 NHIS sample, you will be able to cleanly identify individuals as Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean. For samples in years since 1995 however, these categories are not identifiable.